festi va l 2017 | 43

HF R A N C E S C O C A V A L L I

‹ H I P E R M E S T R A ›

Supported by

Carol and Paul Collins

through

Glyndebourne Association America Inc.

* f 1 7 | № 0 1 *

44 | gly ndebourne

HSyno

psis

A C T IThe 50 daughters of Danao, King of Argos, are engaged to marry the 50 sons of his brother Egitto. Afraid of an oracle predicting that he will lose his kingdom and his life to one of his daughters’ fiancés, Danao orders all his daughters to kill their husbands on their wedding night.

But Danao’s eldest daughter, Hipermestra, has fallen in love with her fiancé Linceo and reveals Danao’s plot to him, urging him to escape. The next morning, Danao discovers that every one of his daughters has followed his orders except Hipermestra. He imprisons her for her disobedience.

A C T I IIn prison, Hipermestra learns that Linceo has gathered his army and is on his way to Argos. Berenice, Hipermestra’s nurse, tells her that General Arbante would like to marry her. Arbante tries to convince Hipermestra that Linceo is returning only to kill her father. But Hipermestra refuses to betray Linceo and asks Arbante to leave.

Upon Linceo’s arrival, King Danao, fearing for his life, asks Arbante to offer Linceo the kingdom. Hipermestra asks her confidante Elisa to beg Linceo for her father’s

life. After Elisa leaves, Berenice suggests that Linceo might fall in love with Elisa, but Hipermestra dismisses the idea.

Linceo has encamped his army by Argos’ walls. He orders his general Delmiro to rescue Hipermestra from her imprisonment. After Delmiro leaves, Arbante arrives and Linceo asks after Hipermestra. Smarting from Hipermestra’s rejection, Arbante falsely tells Linceo that Hipermestra has married Gebete, Prince of Corinth, and that Danao has an army ready to oppose Linceo. Bent on revenge, Linceo sets out to destroy Argos and kill Hipermestra

‹ L O N G D I N I N G I N T E R VA L ›

A C T I I IHipermestra begs Delmiro to kill her, but he takes pity on her and encourages her to escape. Believing Hipermestra to be dead, Linceo declares his love for Elisa, who reveals that Arbante lied about Hipermestra’s supposed infidelity. In despair, Hipermestra throws herself off a tower, but is miraculously rescued. Linceo and Hipermestra are happily reunited.

huya

ngsh

u/S

hutt

erst

ock

festi va l 2017 | 45

Hconductor

William Christie

director

Graham Vick

designer

Stuart Nunn

lighting designer

Giuseppe di Iorio

Orchestra of the Age of EnlightenmentLeader Kati Debretzeni

Violins Kati Debretzeni, Huw Daniel

Cello Jonathan Manson

Violone Christine Sticher

Lutes Elizabeth Kenny, Sam Chapman

Harp Joy Smith

Lirone Emilia Benjamin

cast

Linceo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Raffaele Pe

Hipermestra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Emőke Baráth

Arbante . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benjamin Hulett

Elisa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ana Quintans

Berenice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark Wilde

Danao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Renato Dolcini

Vafrino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anthony Gregory

Arsace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Webb

Alindo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alessandro Fisher

Delmiro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rodrigo Ferreira

Actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jumaane Brown, Samantha Harper,

Steve Johnstone, Jordan Maxwell,

Joseph Raisi, Fanos Xenofos

music preparation

Matthew Fletcher Benoît Hartoin Bernard Robertson

language coaches

Barbara Diana Rita de Letteriis

assistant director

Lorenzo Nencini

staff director

Clemente Ciarrocca

supertitles

Cori Ellison

performances20, 24, 27 May1, 4, 9, 15, 18, 23, 29 June2, 5, 8 July

Monday–SaturdayCurtain up: 5.20pmLong dining interval: 7.05pmCurtain down: 9.30 approximately

SundayCurtain up: 4.05pmLong dining interval: 5.50pmCurtain down: 8.15 approximately

Hipermestra

First performed in Florence on 12 June 1658

First performance at Glyndebourne 20 May 2017 (UK premiere)

‹ H I P E R M E S T R A ›An opera in three acts by

FRANCESCO CAVALLI

LIBRETTO BY GIOVANNI ANDREA MONIGLIASUNG IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUPERTITLES

46 | gly ndebourne

In the autumn of 1968, Glyndebourne ventured out on its first-ever regional tour. Playing alongside favourites by Mozart and Donizetti was one genuine rarity: L’Ormindo by the 17th-century Italian composer Francesco

Cavalli. Despite being rendered in the plush and spurious orchestral upholstery that 1960s’ musical fashion dictated, the piece ‘enthralled’ one precocious operagoer at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool. That was the 13-year-old Graham Vick, who 26 years later would arrive at Glyndebourne as Director of Productions.

This summer’s UK premiere of Hipermestra constitutes the company’s first Cavalli opera since those pioneering efforts of the 1960s, and also Vick’s first return to direct a new production at Glyndebourne since his departure from the staff in 2000. As tempting as it is to focus on the neat symbolism of that closed circle, all such banalities are obliterated by Vick’s raging passion for Cavalli’s music. ‘Nobody has done more sophisticated operas’, he pronounces. ‘Cavalli’s works are great undiscovered pieces and a challenge to any intelligent, thinking audience interested in moral debate. They are musically taut, extraordinarily alive and ideal for this theatre.’

Vick may be referring to the geometry of Glyndebourne’s auditorium but there are more deep-rooted parallels too. Cavalli was one of the first impresarios to mount operas without a subsidy. In catering for paying audiences in Venice, his operatic enterprise had to wash its face. And it did. By the 1650s, his works were proving so popular that

companies had been assembled to perform them in small towns all over Italy. More than anyone, Cavalli laid the foundations for the cultural and physical operatic infrastructure that exists in Italy to this day.

The composer did so via works of complexity but absolute immediacy, ‘sung plays’ in Vick’s words ‘with a fantastic response to verbal nuance and psychology.’ Hipermestra was finished in 1654 but presented four years later, with an added prologue, following a commission by Cardinal Giovan Carlo to celebrate the birth of Felipe Próspero, son of Philip IV of Spain and Mary-Anne of Austria.

That extensive spoken introduction sets up the opera’s apparatus of gods and mortals, but only the latter will be seen in this staging. ‘We’ve cut the gods because they only work in the context of the politically specific prologue, for which the music no longer exists’, says Vick. ‘These pieces were four and a half hours long, so we needed to lose a substantial amount of music anyway. Because the core libretto was so strong in its dealing with moral dilemmas and sexual politics, we chose to focus on that – on the drama itself.’

One reason Cavalli was so adored by 17th-century theatregoers was that he, like his mentor Monteverdi, introduced intrigue, passion, heroism and even exoticism to a stage previously obsessed with stiff literary traditions. Hipermestra boasts all those assets, but boils down to a simple yet tortuous decision faced by one character. ‘It hinges on Hipermestra’s dilemma – is it better to kill your lover or to be responsible

for the massacre of your father and an entire city? – and it examines this moral choice from all sorts of points of view’, says Vick. ‘Hipermestra makes what she believes is the compassionate choice, but there is clearly another argument.’

That sense of challenging moral complexity disappeared somewhat from operas of later periods but absolutely fuels Hipermestra’s relevance and directness. ‘In terms of ethics and social behaviour, this is much closer to us than the hypocrisy and imperialism of the 19th century ’, Vick says. ‘It’s more open and more direct. It looks things more clearly in the eye. Its women are more fascinating, because they had a value that was later taken away from them.’

Sure. But even with its gods surgically removed, Hipermestra relies on at least one moment of divine providence, a deus ex machina device (Hipermestra’s rescue from suicide) that, it could be argued, isn’t such a neat bedfellow to 21st-century humanistic thought. ‘It sits perfectly well in my world’, counters Vick. ‘Moments of grace happen all the time, to deny that would be to deny the miracle of life itself. However you chose to define grace, it does exist.’

Cavalli and his librettist, the poet Giovanni Andrea Moniglia, were well aware that the exoticism and grandeur of the story’s Eastern Mediterranean setting would have prompted a certain frissant among audiences of the day. But those cultural fault-lines have since shifted. ‘We no longer look from afar at the East, at the fabled unity of ravishing refinement and savage cruelty’, says Vick. ‘Those things are at the heart of our own

Cavalli’s contemporary art

Director Graham Vick talks with Andrew Mellor about his new production of Cavalli’s Hipermestra.

festi va l 2017 | 47

society and our own world – and were the starting point in developing the production.’

Thus Vick and his designer Stuart Nunn have ‘spent some money’ making their show look ‘beautiful’. Such beauty used to be something of a Vick hallmark — Glyndebourne productions of Eugene Onegin and Ermione spring to mind — but it absolutely isn’t these days. ‘I became frustrated that what was contained within wasn’t speaking to people because the beauty was forming a barrier that cushioned the need to look beyond’, Vick says. But in Hipermestra, that beauty has a more pivotal dramatic role. ‘The theme here is the exquisite next to the savage; the beauty of destruction. In other words, in order to have the destruction you need the beauty.’

Cavalli the impresario could afford to spend money on scenery because he saved it on musicians. Unlike those 1960s’ Cavalli performances at Glyndebourne, Hipermestra in its more authentic orchestral clothing will be pretty lithe. The ensemble of ten is the smallest to ever have appeared at the Festival, and ‘appearing’ it most certainly will be. ‘Bill [conductor William Christie] and I have worked on making the opera as lean

and vital as possible, taking the text as the absolute heart of the piece’, says Vick. As usual, his physical realisation of the work’s human complexities will emerge in rehearsal, ‘in how the text is sung, thought, felt.’

Thus the idea of Cavalli’s music as an extension of the spoken word, mostly via highly expressive and vividly coloured recitative, will shape this production just as it ensnared the 13-year-old Vick nearly half a century ago. ‘This piece represents the sung word at its highest art’, the director says. ‘It’s an exquisite libretto, and a very fine setting of it. That’s its daring, its modernity, and that’s what makes it accessible. It was contemporary art at the time, because it spoke about difficult and uncomfortable decisions. That’s why it’s still contemporary art today.’ g

Andrew Mellor writes journalism and criticism for publications in the UK, the USA and across the Nordic and Baltic countries. He lives in Copenhagen where he is Scandinavian correspondent for Opera, Opera News and Opera Now and he regularly contributes to BBC Radio 3’s Record Review.

Syr

ian

coup

le N

ada

Mer

hi a

nd H

assa

n Yo

usse

f pos

e fo

r a w

eddi

ng p

hoto

in fr

ont o

f the

dam

aged

bui

ldin

gs o

f Hom

s. J

osep

h E

id/A

FP

/Get

ty Im

ages

‘Moments of grace happen all the time, to deny that would be to deny the miracle of life itself.’

48 | gly ndebourne

Dear reader, I was tempted to begin this short essay with a ‘shocker’ of an opening line: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the orchestra pit of the Glyndebourne opera house will be dramatically empty for this production of Cavalli’s Hipermestra. Never have there been fewer musicians involved in a new production since this house was opened in 1994’. This is a rhetorical beginning of course. But some of you might well ask what’s happened to Cavalli, since Raymond Leppard’s hugely popular productions of L’Ormindo and La Calisto, given here at Glyndebourne in the late 60s and early 70s – productions whose success became known worldwide and which launched a then unknown composer, Francesco Cavalli, into orbit. It does take a certain amount of courage to follow what

is arguably one of Glyndebourne’s greatest musical memories of the last 50 years. Moments still vivid, rich and alive. Do I fear the comparison? In a sense, yes. Hipermestra will be a different kind of Cavalli than its predecessors. Although I believe that there are similarities between my approach and that of Leppard’s.

I was a student at Yale when the first of the Glyndebourne Cavalli productions began in 1967. The buzz generated by the success of L’Ormindo was heard as far as New Haven, Connecticut. In 1970 I had moved to France to begin my career; Leppard produced La Calisto in the same year and again, the buzz was great. The French musical press glowingly talked of the sense of discovery of a new music by a forgotten composer. A short while ago, while preparing this essay, I listened to Leppard’s recording of La Calisto. So much remains fresh and exciting: Janet Baker’s exquisite singing in the role of Diana, Hugues Cuénod’s irresistible interpretation of the nymph Linfea, James Bowman’s singing in the role of Endimione. In short, a recording now 44 years old of impressive vitality.

But even 50 years ago, musical taste was undergoing change. There was, alongside the success of the Glyndebourne Cavalli productions, a negative response to Leppard’s reconstructions, a reaction that came from the then young early music camp, the advocates of historically informed performance on period instruments. Thomas Walker, in his article ‘Cavalli’ for the New Grove’s dictionary, speaks of ‘a seminal stage in the revival of Cavalli’s operas’: ‘the series of popular and controversial reconstructions of L’Ormindo, La Calisto and Egisto by Raymond Leppard.’ In the preface to a series of essays published by Oxford University Press in 1988, entitled Authenticity and Early

William Christie

Cavalli and Glyndebourne then and now

L’Ormindo, Festival 1967 with Irmgard Stadler (Sicle), Anne Howells (Erisbe), Peter-Christoph Runge (Amida), Hugues Cuénod (Erice) and Maureen Lehane (Melide)

Guy

Gra

vett

festi va l 2017 | 49

Music, Nicholas Kenyon reminisces about the antagonism between a ‘generalist’ like Raymond Leppard, who favoured modern instruments when interpreting old music, and his adversaries, those who insisted on the use of period instruments.

Kenyon writes of an article published by Keynotes Magazine in 1982, and reproduced in the Glyndebourne programme book in 1984, wherein Raymond Leppard laid into those who claim

‘that the actual playing of these specialised instruments is the only way for the music to be performed … It is then that we enter the world of cult and bigotry that is as offensive to the art of music as it is inhibiting and unattractive at a human level.’

Kenyon goes on to say that Leppard

‘did not argue against players taking up old playing techniques, but he did go so far as to assert that “many of them who take this droict chemin do so because their road

must, otherwise, be very stony” – a strong accusation of sheer unprofessionalism which was typical of many modern musicians’ views on the subject.’

I was at the beginning of my career as an early music specialist, and a fervent advocate of the use of period instruments when Leppard made these remarks. Were we mediocre musicians? I suppose that for some of our detractors, the very idea that we wanted to specialise in the music of the 17th and 18th centuries, preferring that it be played on period instruments, suggested that we had a significant lack of talent and incompetence for all other music. I say once again: the world has changed. Early music has acquired its lettres de noblesse. The music that we have made popular and which has re-found its eloquence is no longer involved in the messy and ugly polemics of 50 years ago.

But let’s get back to Cavalli, and talk about his greatest contribution to music: opera. He stands at the beginning of this new form that provided, in the words of

Thomas Walker, ‘music to Venice theatres, from the very beginning of public opera to the moment when Venice became the world centre for musical theatre’. And his career as the most important composer of Venetian opera stretches over more than two decades. His operas are written first and foremost for solo voices; rare are the moments when soloists come together to sing. Choruses are noticeably rare. The vocal components are basically two in number: aria and recitative. Arias can have extraordinary dramatic intensity, ranging from dark tragedy in some works to boisterous comedy in others. But equally intense and more important for dramatic flow is the recitative – which is very simply speech notated musically. Cavalli is one of the great masters in treating this partnership between word and music. The orchestra, very small in number, is at its simplest comprised of but two violins and a continuo group. The violins are used principally for the ritornelli, which precede or follow the arias. The other instruments form the continuo – an improvising orchestra consisting of harpsichords, lutes, theorbos and bowed-bass instruments, sometimes harp and lirone. The continuo players are the glory of the Cavalli orchestra. They form an ideal support for the singers on stage.

Raymond Leppard and I had access to the original 17th-century scores of Cavalli’s works, some of which are autograph. They are found in the Marciana Library in Venice. These scores are visually surprising, as they appear often times very minimalist and incomplete. There are entire pages where there are but two musical lines: one for the voice, and another to be shared by the continuo players. Cavalli has left his scores deliberately incomplete: there is much to be added by the interpreter. The continuo

La Calisto, 1970 with James Bowman (Endimione) and Janet Baker (Diana)

© Z

oe D

omin

ic

50 | gly ndebourne

accompaniment must be realised. Decisions are also to be made where written indications of instrumental or vocal material are present, but where the music is lacking. A comparison between Leppard’s editions of L’Ormindo (1969) and Calisto (1975) and these original scores confirms the extraordinary amount of reconstructions, reworkings and additions that transformed the original work of Cavalli into vast new musical creations. Leppard provided elaborate orchestral accompaniments for large portions of the Cavalli score, which require the participation of a modern symphony orchestra as well as a conductor. This was a manner, understandable for the time, of rendering more attractive and understandable Cavalli’s music for an opera-going public more used to the sounds of later opera. It was also, more importantly, a way of using modern orchestral musicians in the production of a 17th-century opera – non specialists, far removed from the early music world, who could simply, as they did with more modern music, read and play what Leppard had reconstructed for them.

Am I as much an interventionist as Raymond Leppard? Will there be as much Christie in Hipermestra as there is Leppard in his reworkings of Cavalli? The answer is yes, but in a very different manner. My colleagues and I begin by establishing a framework, or boundaries if you will, within

which we can operate. We define an aesthetic that takes into consideration performance practice of Cavalli’s time. Does the notion of ‘authenticity’ come into this picture? Emphatically, not! No one is able to say honestly that what we are doing is exactly what Cavalli heard. But we can honestly come closer to the sounds of the 17th century, in part thanks to the activity of musicologists of the past half-century. We ask ourselves a simple question: what does Cavalli like the most? What are the materials and methods he favours? He is pre-eminently a lover of beautiful voices (he was a singer himself). He likes strong libretti, and he likes to set good texts to music. He is not particularly interested in much else – his orchestral accompaniments, as I have said, are minimal and involve few musicians (you remember my opening remarks about the emptiness of the pit). The soloist on stage is the most important element in his musical world.

I can rely on musicians, singers and instrumentalists, all of them specialists, who can work together to achieve these priorities. And I would like to say again, that this is very much linked to the evolution over the last 50 years of the historically informed performers: the continuo – harpsichordists, lutenists, theorbo and lirone players, harpists – as well as violinists, cellists and violone players, who

have benefitted now from years of practical experience by generations of musicians playing and studying this repertory. There is, in other words, an ease, a familiarity in the pit as well as on stage with the ingredients that make up what I think are the salient features of Cavalli’s style – akin, in a way, to the members of Mozart’s orchestra in Vienna or Prague, whose familiarity with his style allowed them to convincingly play his music, even when the ink was still wet on the score; or, to recall a more recent moment, Duke Ellington’s orchestra of the late 20s and early 30s – an orchestra where the instrumentalists improvised following the outline of a score furnished by Duke Ellington himself. In both cases, we are talking about musicians immersed in a style, who gave spontaneity and immediacy to their art.

Can there now be a tradition of Cavalli at Glyndebourne? I would like to continue the ‘œuvre’ that was begun by Raymond Leppard. I believe that we both wish for Cavalli’s music to be communicative, meaningful and enjoyable. Our ways of achieving these goals are different; but the commitment and the love, I think, are recognisably the same. g

William Christie, Conductor, Hipermestra

Opening of Cavalli’s autograph score for Hipermestra, composed 1654

Bib

liote

ca N

azio

nale

Mar

cian

a, V

enic

e

festi va l 2017 | 59

GLYNDEBOURNESHOP.COM

festi va l 2017 | 51

When francesco cavalli was born in 1602, he was called by another name, Francesco Caletti Bruni, and began his life in a very different world from the one he was soon to know.

He was born on 14 February 1602, in Crema (da Crema), a provincial town just southeast of Milan in the middle of the Lombard plain, which was a grand name for what was virtually a swamp formed by the Serio and Adda rivers from the north and, further south, the Po river from the west. Its population had already by then – and continues to do so today – made its name for breeding cattle and producing cheese. For 150 years Crema had been thriving under Venetian rule and protection while the neighbouring duchy of Milan was in deep economic decline. As in all of Venice’s dominions, Crema at this time saw an impressive growth even by today’s standards: city fortifications were built, as well as a Palazzo Comunale (town hall), a bishop’s palace and the magnificent basilica of Santa Maria della Croce. And in 1604 the finishing touches were put to the new bell tower of its cathedral.

Little, however, is known about Francesco’s youth and upbringing, even about his familial background. His father was maestro di cappella (head of music) of Crema’s cathedral and we know that Francesco obtained his first musical training at home and by assisting his father in his duties. We know that his beautiful boy soprano voice was praised beyond the confines of his home town and that the Venetian governor in Crema, Federico Cavalli, took the boy under his wing – he eventually brought him to Venice in February 1617, where his musical preparation proved to be sufficient for the 15-year-old boy to be admitted as a soprano into the choir of the Basilica of Saint Mark’s. Shortly after his wedding in 1630 Francesco Caletti showed his deeply felt gratitude for his support by taking on the surname of his benefactor, thus becoming Francesco Cavalli.

As a chorister he earned a modest 50 ducats but what was life-changing about his new situation was that he was now working directly with the man who was shaping the musical life of the city: Claudio Monteverdi. A native of Cremona, only 20 miles from Cavalli’s hometown, Monteverdi had been serving as maestro di cappella of the Doge’s private chapel, the Basilica of Saint Mark’s since 1613. It was a time rich in musical experience: new music was constantly being written for the various feast days and functions, both liturgical and secular for church and state receptions. Venice, after all, was the most important maritime power in the Mediterranean, controlling access to the eastern silk and spice roads; and the Doge, Monteverdi’s and later, Cavalli’s employer, was its elected and revered prince and along with the adjacent Doge’s Palace, Saint Mark’s was the centre of state representation of the Republic.

Sebastian F Schwarz places composer Francesco Cavalli in the context of opera’s early history and of its cradle, the inimitable city of Venice.

City of sounds and silences

Vie

w o

f Ven

ice

from

Har

tman

n S

ched

el’s

Nur

embe

rg C

hron

icle

, 149

3. W

ikim

edia

Com

mon

s

52 | gly ndebourne

Singing in its choir gave Cavalli an expert understanding both of writing for the human voice and of making the most of any given acoustical situation. Since the time of the celebrated Venetian composers Giovanni and Andrea Gabrieli in the previous century, the Basilica of Saint Mark’s had been the place for experimentation with polychoral music, dividing the chorus into several groups and placing them in strategic spots all around the congregation, thus achieving the precursor of today’s omnipresent ‘surround sound’.

From 1620, probably around the time of his vocal change, Cavalli’s name appears on the payroll of the nearby Zanipolo (Santi Giovanni e Paolo) Church as a substitute organist. From 1628, he returns as a tenor to the ducal chorus, and in 1640 he advances to second organist, and four years later to first organist, now with a very comfortable salary of 200 ducats.

So far, Cavalli’s own musical activity was centred on his duties at the Basilica but of course his privileged position as a Ducal chorister brought him in contact with the other, less formal, more popular sides of Venetian musical life.

Since its first appearance in the aristocratic salons of Florence at the end of the 16th century, opera, a new form of secular musical entertainment, had made its way across to Venice. For its first 40 years, opera was a form played in the noble and royal courts and reserved for the unique festive occasions it was created to adorn. Music and libretti depended on the more or less refined tastes of the commissioning aristocrats who used these occasions to show off their wealth and compete with neighbours or rivals. Orchestras, costumes and sets could not be elaborate enough and often the enormous amounts of money these productions required were eagerly published (and sometimes exaggerated) in a further attempt to aggrandise their patrons.

But in 1637 two Roman fellow choristers of Cavalli’s, Manelli and Ferrari, opened an establishment that would change the face of opera as it had hitherto been known. Their Teatro San Cassiano became the first public opera house in history that

would offer tickets to a paying audience. As opera was now no longer paid for by any individual aristocrat, it became a business and the financial and artistic burden was now placed on the shoulders of the new professional figure of the impresario, in whose interest it was to keep costs at a minimum. When before the splendid uniqueness of the decorations had been a decisive factor for an opera’s success in the eyes of the noble commissioner, now it became important for sets and costumes to be repeatedly used and then recycled for other projects. The production of a successful opera would require two months of daily performances in order to gain a return on investment. Typical theatre seasons would span two months during carnival, 15 days around Ascension Day and two months in the autumn. The orchestra was reduced to a bare minimum; choruses were rarely used at all. No longer did the opera have to please the tastes of any single person; rather, it had to ensure that it kept the largest possible number of paying spectators happy and eager to return. Accordingly, the content of the libretti chosen for performance shifted. Gods and mythological figures gradually disappeared or were confined to the prologues or inserted scenes (as in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea) and the heroes were joined by servants and nurses to offer alternating subplots of lighter entertainment, with moments of great passion succeeded by frivolities or jealousy.

During Cavalli’s lifetime there were soon ten opera houses operating in Venice while the city had a population of about 140,000 inhabitants. Theatres were small neighbourhood venues of between 200 and 400 seats, usually with two or three rows of balconies that were rented out by the season or the year to noble families, mainly of the neighbourhood. They had curtains that could be drawn if the balcony was used for other types of entertainment while a performance was shown. Let us just remember that records report the astounding figure of 20,000 prostitutes in Venice at the time, who were kept in business mostly by the visiting nobility from across Europe for whom Venice (like Paris, Florence and Rome) was an essential part of

Interior of Saint Mark’s by Canaletto, showing the newly elected Doge being presented to the people; note the large pulpits, or bigonzi, either side of the iconostasis, from where singers would perform polychoral music

Eng

ravi

ng b

y B

rust

olon

. De

Ago

stin

i/A. D

agli

Ort

i/B

ridg

eman

Imag

es

festi va l 2017 | 53

The Greek name ‘Hypermnestra’ literally means ‘the one wooed by many’. Yet the renown of this oddly

named mythological figure rests in her unshakable faithfulness to one man alone, a devotion that led her to risk life and limb.

The legend of Hypermnestra is set several centuries before the Trojan War. She was one of the 50 daughters of Danaus (called the Danaides), whose twin brother Aegyptus, King of Egypt, had 50 sons. When Aegyptus commanded his sons to marry the Danaides, Danaus built a ship and fled with his daughters from Egypt to Argos. Some versions of the tale claim that it was Danaus who built the first sailing ship, since he did not expect his daughters to row.

Aegyptus followed them, arriving in Argos with his 50 sons to claim the Danaides as their wives. Danaus conceded his daughters in order to spare his hosts the Argives the ravages of war. But he instructed his daughters that, on their wedding night, they must kill their husbands. Forty-nine of them obeyed their father’s order. Only one, Hypermnestra, refused – purportedly because her husband, Lynceus, had honoured her wish to remain a virgin.

Furious with his rebellious daughter, Danaus left Hypermnestra to the mercy of the Argive court. But Aphrodite, goddess of love, interceded and saved her. Lynceus

later killed Danaus to avenge the slaying of his brothers. Lynceus and Hypermnestra presumably lived happily ever after, launching the Danaid dynasty of Argive kings. Hypermnestra’s murderous sisters, the Danaides, per some versions of the tale, were condemned in the afterlife to carry water in a sieve, or a hole-ridden jug, rendering their efforts eternally fruitless. The faithful Hypermnestra, however, went straight to Elysium.

Hypermnestra’s uncanny tale invites myriad interpretations. Like most myths, it likely blends cosmic phenomena with exaggerated versions of real events in an attempt to explain aspects of nature and/or history. Specifically, this is the foundation myth of Argos, one of the major cities of the Greek Peloponnesus. The conflict between the brothers Aegyptus and Danaus has sometimes been read as the clash between an old world (Egypt) and a new one (Argos). The name Aegyptus may allude to the Nile, and his 50 sons to its tributaries, alternately overflowing and depleted. The name ‘Danaus’ means ‘drought’, a reference, perhaps, to the arid soil of Argos, and the 50 Danaides may signify the countless springs that seasonally refresh that soil. But springs evaporate in hot weather, so the futile work of the Danaides in Tartarus may allude to the difficult task of keeping the sandy Argive soil irrigated.

Cavalli and his librettist Moniglia were not the only artists inspired by the saga of Hypermnestra. Other operas on the subject were written by composers including Charles-Hubert Gervais (Hypermnestre, 1716), Ignaz Holzbauer (Hypermnestra, 1741), Christoph Willibald von Gluck (Ipermestra, 1744), Josef Mysliveček (Ipermestra, 1744), Antonio Salieri (Les Danaïdes, 1784), and Saverio Mercadante (Ipermestra, 1825). Much earlier, Aeschylus featured the Danaides in his play The Suppliants (c. 470 BCE), and one of the 15 epistolary poems in Ovid’s Heroides (c. 25-16 BCE) is a letter from Hypermnestra to Lynceus.

In his The Legend of Good Women (c. 1386-88), Geoffrey Chaucer gave Hypermnestra a place of honour. The long poem is cast in the form of a dream vision: the prologue describes the sleeping Chaucer being scolded by Cupid for depicting women in a poor light in works including Troilus and Criseyde. Cupid’s queen Alceste suggests that Chaucer might redeem himself by writing about women who have remained constant in love. The result is this nine-part poem comprising stories of virtuous women also including Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle, Medea, Lucrece, Ariadne, Philomela and Phyllis. Our faithful Hypermnestra had landed in quite a pantheon. —Cori Ellison

Legend of a good woman: The myth of Hypermnestra

The

Da

naïd

es, J

ohn

Sin

ger S

arge

nt. M

useu

m o

f Fin

e A

rts,

Bos

ton.

Fra

ncis

Bar

tlet

t Don

atio

n of

121

2 an

d P

ictu

re F

und

(201

3.87

)

54 | gly ndebourne

their grand tours to study the arts and architecture – along with, apparently, the city’s more carnal beauties. There were back rooms, or so called ridotti, for private dinner parties or gambling, immortalised in Pietro Longhi’s paintings a century later. The stalls were standing room only (seats were not installed until the late 18th century) and used for the working-class audiences who would buy their tickets on the same day and possibly for one performance only. The theatres were named after each neighbourhood’s parish church, San Cassiano being a parish to the west of the Rialto in the San Polo district of Venice. Although the theatre no longer exists, the church is still an active parish and can be visited.

While still on the payroll of Saint Mark’s, Cavalli soon became a much sought-after opera composer. His first opera, Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo, opened in 1639 at the San Cassiano and was followed by another 12 titles for this theatre, including in 1649 Il Giasone, which was considered the biggest success of the century. In total, we know of 41 operas by Cavalli, of which 22 have survived. Most were written for Venice, but Cavalli was soon also asked to travel and create his highly successful work for Piacenza, Florence, Milan, Naples and Paris. Musically, he developed the art form from the previously predominant declamatory style of recitar cantando (sung recitation) towards a more formal structure, which introduces little arias (at first only for supporting characters), songs, dances and orchestral intermezzi of an ever-increasing complexity and formal variety.

Francesco Cavalli had become a highly popular and successful opera composer, but towards the end of his career he fully dedicated himself again to his ‘day job’ at Saint Mark’s and eventually followed in the footsteps of his great teacher Monteverdi when in 1668 he became maestro di cappella. When

he died on 14 January 1676, he left all of his belongings to the convent of San Lorenzo and was buried next to his wife in its Sozomeno chapel. Ever mindful of his music, he made sure that musicians were well motivated to perform his own Mass for 8 voices and large orchestra by leaving 60 ducats for the music at his funeral along with strict instructions about who was to perform.

Opera in Venice continued to develop for another century, bringing forth Baldassare Galuppi and Antonio Vivaldi, to name only the most important representatives of Venetian-born and -educated composers. And with its development, more and larger theatres were built to satisfy the hunger for this by now well-established art form. Among them was the elaborate Teatro San Benedetto in 1755 (now the site of a multiplex cinema) and eventually in 1792 the Gran Teatro La Fenice, which is still, two fires and rebuilds later, the city’s largest theatre and, arguably, Italy’s best-managed opera house, drawing opera lovers and tourists alike to a wide range of repertoire each year.

With the decline of Venice’s political and economic importance in Europe’s trade routes, she ceased to bring forth great composers of her own. By turning more and more into a museum, her role became one of inspiration to visiting artists of all disciplines. Twentieth-century composer Luigi Nono probably best described his native Venice as ‘a city of sounds and silences’. Just as Monteverdi and Cavalli did at the beginning of the 17th century, Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Wagner, Stravinsky and Britten, to name only a few, later flocked to Venice to tell her stories or turn her unique sounds, lights and life into their own creations. g

Sebastian F Schwarz is Glyndebourne’s General Director.

→ The New Ridotto by Pietro Longhi (1701–85), with masked characters and card players

↑ Unknown Venetian theatre interior from the Travels of Enrico Wanton (1749) shows some of the closed boxes for private entertainments during the performance

Left

: Bib

liote

ca C

orre

r/Fo

ndaz

ione

Mus

ei C

ivic

i, V

enic

e; R

ight

: Fon

dazi

one

Que

rini

Sta

mpa

li, V

enic

e/D

e A

gost

ini/A

. Dag

li O

rti/

Bri

dgem

an Im

ages

festi va l 2017 | 55

Staging an opera in the early modern world was a political strategy, where a patron’s wealth, taste and social status were displayed onstage by means of spectacular machines and costumes, along with beautiful poetry and music interpreted by virtuoso

singers. Cavalli’s Hipermestra, one of the most splendid such productions of the 17th century, had a rather long and tormented genesis. Cardinal Giovan Carlo de’ Medici was patently lying when he wrote to the court of Spain in January 1658, affirming that he had commissioned Hipermestra as a celebratory gift for the birth of the Spanish infante, or prince, Felipe Prosperó. The opera had actually been composed four years earlier to celebrate a completely different occasion, the birthday of Grand Duchess Vittoria Della Rovere, wife of Ferdinand II de’ Medici.

The twisted tale of Hipermestra

Christine Jeanneret traces Hipermestra’s circuitous – and unusually well-documented – route to the stage.

Top

left

: Pal

azzo

Pit

ti, F

lore

nce/

akg-

imag

es/R

abat

ti-D

omin

gie

Top

righ

t: N

atio

nal G

alle

ry, L

ondo

n/ak

g-im

ages

Bot

tom

: Kun

sthi

stor

isch

es M

useu

m, V

ienn

a/B

ridg

eman

Imag

es

→ Cardinal Giovan Carlo de’ Medici, by Baldassare Franceschini (1611-90)

→→ Grand Duke Ferdinand II de’ Medici and his wife Vittoria Della Rovere, by Justus Sustermans, 1660s

↓ The infant Felipe Prosperó, by Diego Velázquez, 1659 – he was a sickly child and so carried the amulet shown in this painting

56 | gly ndebourne

As in every 17th-century opera, the text was considered the most important element by far. ‘Music’, said Francesco Cavalli’s teacher Monteverdi, ‘is the servant of the words.’ The libretti were written, usually by highly literate aristocrats, and then set to music by composers, whose task was to musically express and strengthen the passions of the characters. Cavalli received Giovanni Andrea Moniglia’s libretto in the summer of 1654 and Cardinal Giovan Carlo insisted in several letters that the work be kept in absolute secrecy. Cavalli’s score was sent from Venice to Florence in several segments, the last part arriving in November 1654. The singers began rehearsing the first act in September according to a letter from the castrato Atto Melani: ‘The first act came from Venice and it is truly a miraculous music, […] one of the best piece that Cavalli has done’. Delays in the construction of the new theatre La Pergola, followed by the death of Pope Innocent X in January 1655, caused the performance to be postponed. The Cardinal was forced to stay in Rome for a stormy conclave that lasted almost three months and Hipermestra was shelved for three years. In the meantime, Grand Duchess Vittoria received another operatic birthday present instead, Il potestà di Colognole (libretto by Moniglia and music by Jacopo Melani), premiered at the long-delayed opening of La Pergola in February 1657.

Alli are published in some versions of the libretto, and costume drawings by Stefano Della Bella survive for several characters and allegorical figures, such as Jealousy, Discord and the Furies. These are the only known costume drawings for Italian opera in the 17th century.

Moniglia’s plot is loosely based on the myth of the Danaides. It focuses on Hipermestra, a woman torn between her duty as a daughter and love of her husband Linceo, a story that indeed would better fit the celebration of a noblewoman than the birth of a son. The main plot is complicated by various subplots including two love triangles and treacherous schemes. The traditional comic characters are two servants and an old, unrepentantly lascivious wet-nurse whose farcical hopes for marriage will be ruined. Gods and goddesses play with the fate of the characters and the main theme is the rivalry between Venus and Juno, allegorically representing the antagonism between sensual and marital love, ending with Juno’s victory. Hipermestra and Linceo’s love is celebrated in the customary lieto fine (happy ending) and portends the prosperity of the Argive dynasty. Musically, the drama follows the conventions of mid-century Venetian opera, with rapidly changing affects and eloquent pathos. Because there were

In March 1658, the Cardinal commissioned Cavalli again, to modify Hipermestra, but the music of the new version, along with its magnificent ballets, is lost. Moniglia had written a new prologue and finale, which celebrated Felipe’s birth. He also had carefully removed all references to ‘Vittoria’ and replaced them with ‘Filippo’. However, the ‘Vittoria’ references still exist in Cavalli’s score, along with two conflicting endings, both written in 1654. All the prestigious guests invited to the premiere of Hipermestra, which finally took place at the Pergola on 3 June 1658, took for granted that the opera had been composed specifically for this occasion. None of them seemed to have been aware of the stratagem and the extensive recycling of the work, which would have caused a major diplomatic incident. The lavish production lasted five hours and the spectacular staging was a resounding success. It is by far the best-documented performance in early modern opera. Along with Moniglia’s libretto – one early manuscript version from 1654 and two later printed versions in 1658 and 1689 – Cavalli’s 1654 autograph score, archival documents and extensive correspondence, there exists also a long description detailing the plot, scene changes, machineries and costumes. Precious visual sources have also come down to us: 13 engravings by Silvio Degli

←←Vittoria Della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, by Justus Sustermans, 1640-50

← Giovanni Andrea Moniglia, pastel by Domenico Tempesti, 1680-90

Left

: Pal

azzo

del

gi A

lber

ti P

rato

/akg

-im

ages

/MP

ortf

olio

/Ele

ctra

Rig

ht: G

alle

ria

degl

i Uffi

zi, F

lore

nce/

akg-

imag

es

festi va l 2017 | 57

Hipermestra is remarkable among 17th-century Italian operas for the richness of its surviving visual documentation. The printed libretto of 1658 included fold-out engravings by Silvio Degli Alli showing the various set designs, as well as a ‘stage eye view’ of the theatre itself. More than 40 costume drawings by the Florentine artist Stefano Della Bella (1610-1664) also survive, of which 38 are in the British Museum in London and the remainder in the Uffizi in Florence. Designed by the members of the learned Accademia degli Immobili, who produced Hipermestra under the patronage of Cardinal Giovan Carlo de’ Medici, they offer an extraordinarily rich record of the aesthetics of early opera.

Stefano Della Bella was an established favourite of the Medici family and had already worked on two of the Accademia’s recent productions: Il potestà di Colognole in 1657 and Il pazzo per forza for the carnival season in 1658. His designs for these operas had been contemporary and colourful, in keeping with their buffa themes, but Hipermestra required a different approach. The Accademia were resolved that the

costumes should be classically authentic, in keeping with the noble themes of the opera, and Della Bella was given detailed guidance by a committee of four scholarly members. The resulting costumes, however, look very far from classical to the modern eye. Rather than conforming to archaeological fidelity, their decorations, details and symbolism attest to the full exoticism of the Baroque imagination.

The drawings in the British Museum record a cross-section of costumes from the production. Some are brisk pen and wash designs for the dancers who performed the ballets, dressed variously as gardeners, nymphs and Furies. The costumes are light and gauzy, with fringes and streamers, which would swirl with their graceful movements. For the allegorical and divine characters, Della Bella created fabulous headdresses and robes ornamented with scarves, beads and lace, some of which are picked out with translucent watercolours. Many of the sheets bear annotations, probably added by one of the advisers, detailing the exact colours and fabrics that the tailors should use for the finished article.

The most magnificent surviving drawing for Hipermestra shows the costume for Apollo in the Prologue. This lavish vision of golden splendour is especially striking in view of Della Bella’s recent history. He had only returned to Florence in 1654, after more than a decade spent at the court in France, where he had worked for Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, and where he must have witnessed the splendid court ballets of Louis XIV’s early reign. The design for Apollo is tantalisingly similar to Henri de Gissey’s famous drawing for the King’s costume in the Ballet de la Nuit of 1653, which did much to establish the iconography of the Sun King. With its flared skirt, puffed sleeves and sunbeam headdress, Stefano Della Bella’s drawing thus not only records the remarkable impact of Baroque costume design at its most extravagant, but also testifies to the lively exchange of artistic and musical ideas between the courts of early modern Europe. g

Sarah Vowles is the Hamish Swanston Curator of Italian and French Prints and Drawings at the British Museum

Dressing Hipermestra: Stefano Della Bella’s costume designs

Costume designs by Stefano Della Bella for the 1658 production of Hipermestra at the Teatro La Pergola, Florence. L-R: Apollo, two Furies and Hipermestra

© T

he T

rust

ees

of th

e B

riti

sh M

useu

m, L

ondo

n

58 | gly ndebourne

not yet clear distinctions between aria, arioso and recitative, Cavalli was able to follow closely the metrical and rhetorical structure of the verses, shifting gradually or abruptly between declamation and lyricism. Tragic and passionate scenes for noble characters alternate with short ironic parts by servants intended to provide comic relief.

However, there was a remarkable difference between the typical Venetian productions and Hipermestra. In Venice, performances were public; it was therefore a business that had to attract a wide audience in order to cover the costs. The cast was usually limited as were the visual effects. Hipermestra on the contrary was a private courtly event and no expense was spared to stage the Medici power. There was an extraordinary number of characters on stage and the most spectacular theatrical effects. The prologue features flying gods and goddesses and

splashing marine monsters. At the end of the prologue, a horrid mountain appears and the scene ends with a ‘bizarre ballet’ of Furies summoned by Venus. The most famous scene of the whole opera takes place at the end of the second act, when Linceo attacks the city of Argos. The abbattimento (battle scene) is staged as a ballet and no less than 62 Florentine noblemen performed it. The fight seemed so real that many spectators

‘forgot that it was feigned. There were ladies whose hearts froze in their chests [as if] their dear husband mortally wounded himself and feared deeply for his life; and in the contest of such hand and war skills and because of their frightening countenances, the false and the true were mixed up. Strong apprehension made [spectators] imagine real wounds and real bloodshed, even if they were not real.’

In the third act, when a desperate Hipermestra attempts to kill herself by jumping from a tower, she is miraculously saved by a peacock (Juno’s bird) on a ‘marvellous machine’. In the next scene, Venus conjures Discord and Jealousy, who fly from hell to the sky wrapped in a cloud. Jupiter intervenes and they precipitate into hell, yielding the stage to a magnificent garden. The final dances include a ‘bizarre galliard with extremely high cabrioles’, a French branle, a gavotte, a fast canario and a Spanish dance with castanets, sometimes accompanied by the singers’ voices, sometimes by the instruments ‘realising an amazing concert for both eyes and ears’.g

Christine Jeanneret is professor of musicology at the University of Copenhagen. She specialises in early modern Italian opera with a strong focus on performance and gender studies.

Set for the Battle Scene (abbatimento) in Hipermestra, choreographed by the Marquis Tommaso Guidoni and engraved by Silvio Degli Alli, from the libretto by GA Moniglia

© T

he T

rust

ees

of th

e B

riti

sh M

useu

m, L

ondo

n